1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to a bias charge member, and more particularly, concerns vibrating a bias charge member in a printing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
In a typical electrophotographic printing process, a photoconductive member is charged to a substantially uniform potential so as to sensitize the surface thereof. The charged portion of the photoconductive member is exposed to a light image of an original document being reproduced.
Exposure of the charged photoconductive member selectively dissipates the charges thereon in the irradiated areas. This records an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductive member corresponding to the informational areas contained within the original document. After the electrostatic latent image is recorded on the photoconductive member, the latent image is developed by bringing a developer material into contact therewith. Generally, the developer material comprises toner particles adhering triboelectrically to carrier granules. The toner particles are attracted from the carrier granules to the latent image forming a toner powder image on the photoconductive member. The toner powder image is then transferred from the photoconductive member to a copy sheet.
The toner particles are heated to permanently affix the powder image to the copy sheet.
In printing machines such as described above, a bias charge roller (BCR) is increasingly used as the major charging apparatus in xerographic systems due to environment friendliness and excellent charging performance. Most BCRs are contacting the photoconductive member or photoreceptor, but some manufacturers use a non-contact type BCR. A contact BCR provides several advantages over traditional scorotron charging: a) uniform and stable charging; b) reduced emissions of ozone or other corona by-products; c) lower AC/DC voltage supply requirements; and d) reduced service maintenance. The contact BCR will suffer from toner/additive contamination over many printing cycles and it is widely accepted that direct-contact BCRs increase the wear rate of the photoconductive member, reducing overall service life of both BCR and the photoconductive member. The non-contact BCR addresses these issues but demands other engineering trade-offs, such as increased knee voltage, i.e., VAC to stabilize charging with an increased wear rate associated.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,126,344; 7,711,285; 7,526,243; 7,266,338; 7,079,786; 6,836,638; 6,470,161 are all directed to using vibration-assisted cleaning systems that vibrate at a high frequency to alleviate the adherence of particles trapped on the cleaning surface of a photoreceptor, as well as, reduce damage on the photoreceptor surface due to relaxation time provided by the vibration. Examples of bias charge rollers or brushes are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,177,572 and 6,022,660.
However, there is a continuing need for a more robustly configured BCR.